Above the Fold

• According to the New York Post, “A damning dossier leaked from the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance claims that China lied to the world about human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus, made whistleblowers disappear and refused to hand over virus samples so the West could make a vaccine.” President Trump yesterday revealed that the U.S. “will be giving a very strong report on what we think happened, and I think it will be very conclusive.”

• A payroll tax cut has been floated before by the commander-in-chief but ultimately shelved. Yesterday, though, President Trump stipulated of future relief bills: “We are not doing anything unless we get a payroll tax cut. That is so important to the success of our country.” Mark Alexander has previously called this “the most sensible way to sustain increased income for working men and women in the coming months.”

Government & Politics

• On Friday, “The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled against the Trump administration in an important sanctuary city case, City of Chicago v. Barr,” The Volokh Conspiracy reports. This and antecedent rulings nullify “the Trump Justice Department’s attempts to impose immigration-related conditions on state and local governments that receive Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants intended to aid law enforcement operations.”

• Tara Reade, who is accusing Joe Biden of sexual assault, “told the AP twice that she did not use the phrase ‘sexual harassment’ in filing the complaint” against Biden nearly 30 years ago. As explained by Reade, “I talked about sexual harassment, retaliation. The main word I used — and I know I didn’t use sexual harassment — I used ‘uncomfortable.’ And I remember ‘retaliation.’” At the very least, this undermines her own story.

• In Canada, “New rules would make it illegal to sell, transport, import or use 1,500 varieties of assault weapons,” the BBC says. According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only — only to kill the largest amount of people in the shortest amount of time. You don’t need an AR-15 to bring down a deer.” Thankfully, America’s Founders understood the real purpose of firearms — for self-defense and to protect against government tyranny — and thus codified the Second Amendment in the Constitution so that it can’t be infringed upon at whim.

The Latest on Coronavirus

• NBC News says: “The Food and Drug Administration has granted remdesivir emergency use authorization to treat the most severely ill COVID-19 patients.” As explained by the FDA, “Given there are no adequate, approved, or available alternative treatments, the known and potential benefits to treat this serious or life-threatening virus currently outweigh the known and potential risks of the drug’s use.”

• Meanwhile, “The Food and Drug Administration gave emergency approval to a COVID-19 antibody test that boasts near-perfect accuracy,” reveals the New York Post. “Swiss drugmaker Roche said the new test, which determines whether someone had a past infection, has proven 100% accurate at detecting antibodies in the blood and 99.8% accurate at ruling out the presence of them.”

Other Notables

• Sanity prevails as federal judge slaps down soccer star Megan Rapinoe’s fake “equal pay” lawsuit (Washington Examiner)

• Citing religious liberty, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocks Kentucky governor’s limit on drive-in church services (The Volokh Conspiracy)

• North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un reappears in public, ending absence amid health rumors (AP)

• Well-endowed Harvard canceled Hong Kong human-rights event as its president met with Communist Chinese dictator Xi Jinping (The Washington Free Beacon)

• Cellphone monitoring is spreading with the coronavirus. So is an uneasy tolerance of surveillance. (The Washington Post)

• People taking on hunting amid meat shortages in the U.S. (Fox News)

Closing Arguments

• Policy: Meat-supply disruptions are the bitter harvest of the “nonessential worker” fallacy (Foundation for Economic Education)

• Policy: One concrete way to start decoupling with China (American Enterprise Institute)

• Humor: Justin Trudeau bans 1,500 types of flu and coronavirus from Canada (Genesius Times)

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit In Our Sights.

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